Why

you should #AskYourMother About Her Abortion

By Lauren Diamond Oct 30th 2015
==

Ellen Kramer (far right) and friends in 1981

My friends and I take our reproductive rights for granted. How could we not? We
live in a time and a place in which getting birth control is as simple as making a call
to University Health Services. In 2015 in Ann Arbor, MI, emergency contraception is
just a quick trip to the drug store and abortion is a safe and legal option should we
ever choose to take that route.





Over the course of the last few months, conservative Republicans have mounted a
series of efforts to cut off Federal funding to Planned Parenthood, threatening to
shut down the government should this attack be unsuccessful. These offenses
against our reproductive rights are neither the first nor the last, and it is important
that we fight to keep our reproductive freedoms in tact.

The undertaking has been galvanized by the release of a video incriminating
Planned Parenthood for selling fetal tissue. Yet Planned Parenthood refuted the
claim that they profit from the practice, and only donate tissue at the request of the
patient.

Conservatives have based their attack on the logic that federal funds should not be
provided to an organization that provides abortion. Yet absolutely no federal
funding goes toward Planned Parenthoods abortion services, which only make up
around 10% of their overall services.

Further, according to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2013 publically funding family
planning helped prevent 2 million unintended pregnancies, which would have
resulted in 1 million unintended births and approximately 700,000 abortions. So in
threatening to slash funding for family planning services, conservatives are actually
threatening to defund services that aim to prevent abortions.

Family planning is particularly essential for low-income women. In the 1970s,
Richard Nixon signed Title X into law, which he stated was important because no
American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of
her economic condition.

Statistically, unintended pregnancies are most prevalent among women of low
economic standing. Thus, this is also the demographic that will be hit hardest should
the government cease to provide federal funding for health care providers like
Planned Parenthood.

Current conservatives are far less progressive than the Nixon administration, which
understood that Planned Parenthood, and clinics like it, help to prevent AIDS,
sexually transmitted infections, as well as cervical and breast cancer.

Title X saves not only lives but money as well, as the Guttmacher Institute estimates
that every dollar invested in public family planning services will save $7
in public expenditures to put it in perspective, the cost of a condom is far less
expensive than costs of having a child.





Weve seen this type of attack on Planned Parenthood and other family planning
clinics before. The 1992 Supreme Court Case Planned Parenthood v Casey
determined vaguely that state abortion restrictions could not place an undue
burden on the mother seeking abortion, without actually defining this undue
burden standard. Since then, states have put clinics that offer abortion services out
of business and compromise maternal health through unfair restrictions such as
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP laws), ultrasound requirements,
and mandatory waiting periods. This use of clinic regulation to limit access to
abortion continues today, and is yet another affront to our reproductive rights we
must fight regularly.

As we continue to see conservatives attempt to limit our reproductive rights, we
must be aware of what life was like for women before Roe v Wade, before we were
able take control over our own sexual health.

Ive asked two women to share their stories. A family friend shared her experiences
before Roe v Wade was passed, and my mother shared her story, which took place
after abortions were legalized. It is important ask the women in our lives just why
taking away our reproductive rights is so harmful. So #AskYourMother, because
talking about it makes us aware of how fortunate we are to take our reproductive
rights for granted.

Dovey, age 73

I was living in Baltimore, Maryland in 1969 and my husband and I had two planned
children. Id been using an IUD at the time. But several months after having my
second child, I got pregnant again. I had been totally committed to prevention, but it
just didnt work. Luckily for me, my husband was a physician.

In 1967, there was a law passed that made abortion legal if you got a committee of
doctors to sign off saying the pregnancy was dangerous for the mother. So even
though it was 1969, it was very easy to find three other doctors to sign off saying it
was medically necessary. The procedure was outpatient. In my mind there was not a
guilt process going on at all. Since my husband was a doctor and we were able to
play the game, get the three signatures, it wasnt an issue. For other women I can
appreciate their trauma trying to make it happen. I was angry though that it had to
be the way it was, that you had to get doctors to sign off. This is not a flighty, silly
decision. Anyone who has an abortion knows that this is what they want to do. The
fact that it was illegal didnt stop me. Im a very strong advocate of Planned
Parenthood, and a very strong advocate of facts.





After having the IUD taken out, I went on the pill. Then we moved to California and
in 1973 while using the pill conscientiously I found myself pregnant again. At that
point in time it was very easy to get an abortion, because it was after Roe v Wade. It
was just a doctors visit, outpatient.

Its been fascinating to me that its still such a taboo subject. Back then it was called
a therapeutic abortion, and that seems like a preferable term. Who would have ever
thought that this would still be an issue in 2015. I live in California, and California
was just the first state to pass legislation that requires Crisis Pregnancy Centers to
provide accurate information.

Ellen, age 55

It was 1982, and I was an architecture student at the University of Michigan and I
had a steady boyfriend at the time. We had talked about getting married but he was
also still in college. Back in the early 80s, that was pre AIDS and HIV, so no one really





used condoms as a source of preventing pregnancy. The common thing to use was
diaphragms, and they were really a drag. It was very hard to be spontaneous. The
pill did exist, but the pill back then was much stronger than the one you girls are
taking now. It wasnt something we really wanted to take when we were in our 20s,
because they didnt really know what the side effects or the long terms effects were
going to be. My mother used an IUD which I thought was weird and gross.

There was another birth control method called a cervical cap. It wasnt approved by
the FDA, but it was widely used in Europe. My friend Beth had gotten one. She was
living in New York, she went to NYU, and her gynecologist was Dutch so he had
brought some of them to the United States. I went to this doctors office on Park
Avenue to get one, it was a nice office and he was a legitimate OB. I ended up getting
pregnant using it, and so did Beth. So I guess the FDA did actually have a reason to
not approve it in the United States. We werent being irresponsible, but we got
pregnant anyway.

I recall going to health services at Michigan and having a test. When health services
called back the woman on the phone said, yes you are pregnant, is that going to be a
problem? I remember exactly the way she said it. How ridiculous? Of course it was
going to be a problem!

My boyfriend and I were very serious, and he was someone who I ended up having
children with when finally got married and in our 30s. But I was 20, and he was 21.
Both of us were way too young to want children and we didnt want to stop college
or the trajectory of our careers. My life wouldve been completely different if Id had
to have that baby. The fact that we had abortion as an option was fantastic.

I made an appointment in New York City. I had to fly there, my boyfriend was with
me holding my hand. It was very early, in the first ten weeks. Its scary enough when
youre with a doctor who you know what hes doing. I mean I went to a Park Avenue
office, imagine how scary it wouldve been if it were illegal in a back alley. But, I still
wouldve done it. The legality wouldnt have stopped me it just wouldve made it
more difficult and dangerous. Its not something I was a flip about, but we knew it
was the right thing to do. We were 20 for goodness sake, we wouldve been terrible
parents. We could barely take care of ourselves. And after that, I went right on the
pill.

- As told to Lauren Diamond